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Articles: Court turns down Zuma application

Posted by admin on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 - 02:54 PM

THE Johannesburg High Court today postponed former deputy president Jacob Zuma’s rape trial to Monday after turning down his application for a discharge.
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Zuma’s lawyer Kemp J Kemp said certain witnesses still needed to be consulted and asked for the court’s indulgence. Zuma’s defence team pushed strongly yesterday for the rape charge against the former deputy president to be dismissed and for the court to rule that utterances Zuma made at his home two weeks after the alleged rape were inadmissible in court. The defence said the state had to prove that the accused had the intent to rape the complainant, and had to do so beyond reasonable doubt. The defence team applied for testimony from Gauteng head of detective services Norman Taioe to be declared inadmissible, as Zuma had not been read his rights when the police arrived at his home in Johannesburg. Taioe testified that he had asked Zuma to point out the scene of the alleged crime, and that Zuma had pointed to the guest room. The defence said the approach of the police had been misleading, and was intended to catch the suspect unawares. Zuma is accused of raping a family friend at his home on November 2, a charge he denies. Kemp told the court that the complainant acknowledged during crossexamination that the accused could have thought that she had consented to sex. “In rape cases, it is the woman’s consent and perceptions that are important. The woman is in a far better position than the court to judge whether her conduct could have led to belief of consent. That concession is of considerable value,” Kemp said. Kemp said that the complainant had not in her version of the events indicated her unwillingness to participate in sexual intercourse. “There was no way he could have known there was an objection,” Kemp said. He said the fact that Zuma had spoken words of endearment to her during intercourse seemed to indicate that he had thought that everything was normal at the time. With Business Day Reporter

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